Slow Factory

With a holistic and rigorous focus on sustainability, Slow Factory works on integrative solutions, mainly for the urban environment.
Current themes include: Bicycles with Public Transport; Dogs on Public Transport; Re-defining pets/companion animals as "Family animals".
Also, on this Blog and other forums we take a critical approach regarding the crossroads of city life & politics, corporations/industry, language, advertising and media.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

My most popular blog entry is about what I call "lux-narcissism", i.e. over-lighting a bike and its rider to the detriment of others legally-illuminated, and pedestrians. I have also written about this invention from Sweden and helmetism in general many times before.

The Hövding is the ultimate example of bicycle safety narcissism. Aside from the obnoxious marketing hyperbole it costs EUR 400 in the EU and 600 in the USA. IF you really think a helmet can help, then buy five 60 dollar helmets for friends and give 300 dollars to your local bicycle coalition or another org. fighting desperately to keep streets save and collisions from happening in the first place.

Please notice that I am not mentioning efficacy, durability, its single use function, comfort or any other technical or aesthetic issues. I also hope that my criticism would be the same for a project led by two men.

The problem is that it is simply far too expensive for most people. Their whole business plan is totally wrong -- they got money from the Swedish or regional government but also from private sources. Regarding the latter, they obviously completely screwed up and should have required a much longer period that investors were willing to wait to get paid back.

It is truly a pity because maybe this works... maybe not. People joke about the "Chinese" ripping off the design, so we'll see if the price on devices exactly like this or better comes down by a factor of five.

Again, I am against helmet requirements for any age group, helmet promotion by governments and similar from non-profits (e.g. urban cycling organizations) which do not show the real deal with helmet efficacy. Most helmet companies also use a lot of hyperbole or even insults e.g. "I Love my Brain".

I am for infrastructure, training and enforcement that ensures that people on bikes and everyone else dwelling in, visiting or just using the street are as safe, social and have as much fun as they want.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The NYMTA and NYCDOT announced on Tuesday that the app., which provides info on where to find Sub Way, is available for download from iTunes and Google Play.

Sub Way took a step—or rather a leap over the turnstyle —closer on Tuesday to its
Memorial Day launch with the release of the Sub Way app for iPhone
and Android devices. The free app will allow riders to locate the stations around Manhattan and central Brooklyn, providing information
about which stations can be reached from the street, and, for those riding, which stations their train will stop at.

"This
new app will help tap into everything that the city's newest
transportation system has to offer when Sub Way Stations launches next
week," Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said in a release. "With
instant information on available trains, stations and nearby
destinations, this smart technology will bring the city within reach
with just a click. Ghost stations will be easy to identify."

The
app, built on the Google Maps interface, doubles as a tool for
navigating the city. In the coming weeks, it will be integrated
with The
New York Times'The
Scoop app,
providing listings for local hotspots and upcoming events. It's
available at the iTunes store and Google Play.

TheCiti Bike Appallows a user of the newest, most long-awaited and possibly most high profile bike share system in the Universe know where bikes are docked and ready to use, and where there are available docks to leave a bike.

In the long fine-tuning period of the late 2000-era bike share systems, e.g. in Paris, when a station at your destination was full of bikes, it became possible to find another station and not get charged for going over the 30-min "free" use allotment. I have read little of the inconvenience of this for some (i.e. having to walk twice the distance, getting somewhere late, etc... perhaps it did not happen or is a bit of an inconvenient truth. I never spent a lot of time in a city with this type of system so did not personally experience the situation.)

While waiting for their bikes, Citi Bike App users can check out interesting photos of Canadian Tar Sands.

Still, what if the last working bike is taken in between the time you check to see if one is available and similarly, what if your hoped-for slot goes to someone else's bike? This built-in inefficiency and unpredictability seems very un-New York. It is not really how the subway works, is it?

So what is happening in other cities?

This is what is happening. The app. for the GoBike - "...Denmark's most innovative city commuter bike system..." - allows the users to reserve a bike at a particular stand and reserve a slot and time to leave the bike. See also this link, in Danish.

The Bixi-based system which starts in NYC in a few days has been successful in Washington D.C. and other cities, but its important support functions involving locating and checking out a bike and leaving it where you want is several years out of date. I hope that the relevant software can be updated to modern standards and a new matching app introduced before the system rolls out beyond parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

(I am not suggesting that the Bixi-bike itself needs major modifications, but even carrying a single shopping bag with it is difficult. The handlebar tablet in GoBike seems particularly vulnerable: My team excluded something like that from our winning bike share concept for Denmark in 2009.

In the near future I will probably write about the station-based vs station-less systems once we have some results from Tampa and other places where the latter are being implemented.)

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

I had some hope for Bikes Belong - People for Bikesis one of their initiatives - when it first appeared. But now - like the League of American Bicyclists - they think that some simplistic "sharing" message made in collaboration with a big private car actor - in the latter's case the AAA and in People for Bikes's VW - will have some significant effect.

There is a belief - an excuse for soft over hard measures - that "it is all about education" and that dangerous conditions are caused by acute (at the time of incident) dehumanization of The Other. But Bikes Belong also falls into the trap which sees drivers and riders as equals on the street.

But the holistic sharing problem is not solved by better driving alone - and certainly not with better riding!!!﻿ It is mainly infrastructure and road design that makes real solidarity impossible*, so prioritizing separation of pathways (including intersection movements) is one of the best ways to promote real hugging (!).

How many viewers of the Bikes Belong-People for Bikes spot will visit their website to get the real message that the org. is trying to deliver, including good ideas such as increased financial investment in the all-important infrastructure? Perhaps the problem is not fundamental - though given this recent deceitful mobility porno in the new spot I would like to see Bikes Belong justify its partnership with Volkswagen. (Here is one of their recent adverts, which it does not seem that Bikes Belong influenced.)
I suspect that the tail (in the form of outside consultants brought in by VW) is wagging the dog here. Bikes Belong needs to figure out how to honestly engage in communicating effective policy and ideas. Abusing the glorious embrace of humans for the benefit of a huge private urban automobile-making company does not encourage the belonging of bikes.*Impossible? Unapproachable? Difficult? I suppose my point is that private, energy-efficient automobiles do have a role to play as a responsible part of the entire mobility mix, but mostly in a supporting role.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

League of USAian* Cyclists announced their National Bike Month activities today. Bike Month is in May. Website includes downloadable PDFs, including the "Bike to Work Commuter's Booklet". This is the front and back cover. Oops. Wonder if they have cancelled his membership... (Update, 8 April, the PDF with Armstrong is still available.)

Okay, okay, as you can see the pamphlet has the old logo, so they probably just forgot to check everything that was going out. I assume they will not be handing this out and that the people on the front and back of the update will not be "white" men.

*"USAian" because "American" as the reserved adjective for the not eponymous country is offensive to quite a number of people hailing from the other areas between the North Pole and the Tierra Del Fuego.

A number of years ago the organization was called the "League of American Wheelmen", so the newer name IS better.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Hradec Králové means Castle of the Queen, so it is nice that bike in the logo is a semi- step through model.

Cycling for transport is popular in the Czech Republic where the conditions are right, and Hradec Královéin in the north-central part of the Central European country is no exception.

Often called Hradec for short, the small city of just over 90,000 claims an official 24% bicycle modal split, a bit of an exaggeration says one local expert but similar to the German cycling capital of Bremen and a bit higher still than the biggest districts for biking in Berlin -- comparisons are difficult and not really necessary - continuous improvement more so - but still Hradec has about eight times as much cycling as Prague, per capita.

As I understand it, the high rate is due to several factors, including being a place where nearly everyone cycles sometimes -- meaning that they drive motor vehicles a bit more safely in relation to people on bikes.

So it is not surprising - but very encouraging - that a type of cycle parking unknown in the country has been implemented in Hradec. Similar to the well-known automated underground parking in Japan, the system here has the bikes above ground. (So in other words the Japanese system is an "innie" and the Czech one an "outie"). The kolověž (bike tower) has 116 spaces and in full effect will give a bike back in about 30 seconds. For now the price is 5 Czech crowns -- about 25 US cents. There are certainly different reasons to do what is most appropriate structurally and just in terms of available space, but the new parking structure is also a positive symbol for transport cycling in a country still relatively crazy about automobiles.

Not so close -View from approximate location kolovez towards Hradec Králové main station, via Google Streetview.

Still, symbols for cycling are not important as what actually works well. The kolověžis located a bit far by foot to the train station (though it also serves people just travelling to this central part of town) and has no provision for larger cargo bikes including long tails -- these are the real automobile replacements, and if actors in Hradec want people to take children (and a dog) to school in the morning on the way to the station they will need consider safe parking for all types of bikes. Officials and investors will build more towers if the first one proves popular, but on a per space basis does it make the most economic sense?

Dave Holladay from the CTC in the UK has some very useful comments at the end of the Bike Biz article here.

In the end a (barely) Western EU-based objective expert's feeling of encouragement or statements of "continuous improvement" in viewing this solution runs the risk of being patronizing -- just because the Czech Republic is not the most "Western", economically-developed etc. etc. does not mean it deserves anything but the best, and cities and towns in this country and other parts of Europe with less overall success in sustainable development need just as much friendly pressure and support as anywhere else. Honesty about economic capabilities is a virtue; lowering of standards is not.

Inside view. Not precisely a robotic system... but anyway the word "robot" was created byJosef Čapek from Hronov, a town near Hradec Králové. Photo from Cykl.cz. Several You Tube videos of the system are also at this link.

***

This entry comes after a nearly five month break during in which my second dog, Mara (on the right), departed this physical plane... perhaps to the věž duhy (rainbow tower). Her brother Obi died a year ago.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

In the August 2012 Governing, which describes itself as "... the nation's leading media platform covering politics, policy and management for state and local government leaders", Regional Plan Association Senior Fellow Alex Marshall gets it wrong about what makes cycling safe in the Netherlands (and Continental Europe).

In his story in Governing, Marshall praises "strict liability" in the Netherlands (and elsewhere in Continental Europe), claiming that "... it’s not the bike lanes that keep cyclists safe..." but that "Ultimately, if we are to be safe, we need the driver to look out for us, not for us to look out for the driver."

Marshall gives the following description of "strict liability": "It means that if you, the driver, strike a pedestrian or cyclist, you are automatically at fault, even if the walker or cyclist literally jumps out in front of you. "

Marshall thinks that "Strict liability" is a kind of Commandment - learned, or even genetic - that governs the behavior of drivers (and cyclists towards pedestrians) and that it is the primary method for keeping cyclists (and pedestrians) safe in the Netherlands. This is simply not the case, but to be fair to Marshall lots of people get this wrong (hugs).

I agree that drivers in the USA have much less legal liability then they should, and am happy that groups like Transportation Alternatives in NYC have lately become emboldened to take on the NYPD (and Mayor Michael Bloomberg) and their inability or unwillingness to enforce current laws in a new campaignand recentreport, but am frustrated that senior experts like Marshall believe more than anything in repercussion-based mobility safety. However, I am sure that they are willing to learn what really works!

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

In Autumn 2011 I wrote a short article in conjunction with an invitation to be part of a round table discussion at 3as Jornadas de la Bicicleta Pública, which took place from 13-16
October 2011 in Santander,
Cantabria, Spain.

"Angelica,
Torera and Juan -Public
bicycles in Europe, sometime in the middle of the first half of the
21 Century” was published in May in Spanish as "Angélica, Torera y Juan. Bicicletas públicas en Europa, en algún momento de la primera mitad del siglo XXI"in the bookBalance General de la Bicicleta Pública en Españaby Esther Anayaand Albert Castro and published by Fundación ECA - BUREAU VERITAS.

To introduce the English version, I thought I would sketch out an idea dealing with bike share for mobility-challenged persons, which is the focus of part of my article...

Version of bicycle from OPENbikeI did for a presentaton in April 2010 for the OBIS European Bike Share Project. Slow Factory (Green Idea Factory at the time) collaborated with LOTS Design and Koucky & Partners on OPENbike, which won one of two first prizes in the Copenhagen Bike Share Design competition in 2009.

There are bicycle designs that allow mobility-challenged persons - those without the full use of their legs, who have problems balancing, sight or hearing issues, seizures, etc. - to participate in physical activity and social interaction or even to have independent mobility... even in the city.

It is curious that none of the bike share operations in the U.S. - or particularly those operated with public money such as Capital Bikeshare in Washington D.C. - have bicycle for mobility-challenged persons. This seems to be a violation - even an extreme one - of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA. (Of course, a similar question is relevant for bike share in the EU, China and other places. See this link for an example of how a carshare operator in the U.S. offers access to its members with disabilities.)

For the individual with sufficient vision or hearing, a handcycle (without full use of legs) or tricycle (balance issues) might be a solution (the elderly mother of a friend of mine who has an artificial leg uses a normal pedelec/electric-assist bike). For persons who for whatever reason cannot ride alone, a tandem bicycle - for use with a friend or assistant - might be a solution*. Tandems for Bike Share! (Adapting Bike Share for Tandem Bicycles)

I do not believe that there are any technical barriers (hardware, software, bicycle design) for this. However, tandems are expensive, especially if
built in small numbers. Also bike share parking might need
to be modified to allow a longer bike in any slot, and probably only
some could have this modification. Then what I would is:

1 - Add something to the software/user data that allows a normal
bikeshare member to use tandem bikes only if they have a
doctor-certified reason for not being able to ride their own bike
(vision-impairment, balance issues, unpredictable seizures, etc). This person would check out a bike
on their account and travel with any sighted person, and would be
liable for both (or if the bike share operator is really uptight
then this person's normal assistance person, if any, but that might
violate at least the spirit of ADA).

2 - There would be a limited number of these and probably adding a
reservation feature would be difficult to add to the software, so no
guarantee that one will be found. (However, the pricing plan for
these users could enable them for longer for no additional cost in
order to enable a round trip journey with a short appointment/time
spent at destination).

3 - If there is an over-capacity of tandems or simply a lot of them
provided, they could be available for anyone at a higher price or
the normal price if both people are users (software).

4 - As many vision-impaired people have guide
dogs, there is also no technical barrier to adding sidecars to a tandem.

5 - Actually, sidecars on bikeshare for normal dogs would be fun but
these people have their own special bikes (however, the limited
cargo capacity of nearly all bike share bikes is a problem for
people who want to do anything with them besides short commutes or
very light shopping.)

Cambio (Belgium)

* Cargo bicycles - also for carrying children - are also missing in bike share. OPENbike - the design I worked on - mentioned this and it is also included in the presentation of Velobility (PDF). However, the only cargo bikes I know of incorporated into existing sharing programmes are part of carshare schemes in Ghent, Belgium and Leipzig, Germany -- more should follow (I like the idea of carshare members being able to use a cargobike when a normal car is overkill for a particular journey...)

***

“Angelica,
Torera and Juan - Public
bicycles in Europe, sometime in the middle of the first half of the
21 Century”

Foreword:

In
this bit of speculative mobility fiction* I consider the growing
integration of the “mobile urban lifestyle” in Europe – and it
is probably carfree as well but I am not explicit it. Utopias are
fine and dystopias are somehow just as easy to describe, so I try to
mix the two – that is what life is like and will always be like for
most people. “Public bicycles” are also not an island unto
themselves and beyond integration with collective PT they are also
indivisible from the political and social reality of the now and
future worlds.

*
Note that some of the information in footnotes is also the result of
consultation with a fortune teller.

Angelica
– In charge of business development at a major European public
transport operator

It
was destined to be an interesting day for Angelica, the
vice-president for business development at a European public
transport operator headquartered in Istanbul and Madrid – she was
based in the latter. But she did not know how it would turn out.

Her
company took a risk in the solution she offered to big tender for
feeder (“first/last mile”) solutions for the regional railway in
a growing region in Central Europe , but Angelia sensed early on that
her idea was the right one:

The
suggestion that public transport companies become complete mobility
providers was pushed by UITP starting in the 2010's1,
and while there were a few examples of this type of philosophy such
as in Bordeaux, France2,
by that time and a few more later in the strategies of PT operators,
it took some time – many years - before it was reflected in
tenders.

And
still, many were limited to focus only on varied collective modes,
rather than including both motorized and non-motorized individual
transport solutions.

This
tender was a gift for a relatively radical thinker like Angelica, and
to prepare for it she did extensive research of inhabitants of the
hilly areas in the mandated catchment area of the PT hubs that were
the subject of this tender.

What
she found was not surprising for her at least: People wanted to have
a variety of options to and from their homes to the hub, and to also
vary them for individual journeys, in other words many loved the idea
of cycling to a station and taking a bus or taxi back. Or the
reverse, as long as the way home was on an electric bike.

The
clincher for Angelika – what finally and absolutely convinced her –
was the EU-law which had recently come into effect that mandated a
guaranteed minimum lifespan of electric bikes – specifically, it
standardized both battery connections3
and mandated that future upgrades would be low-cost. Somewhat
ironically, this legislation was the result of an early EU-law that
banned cadmium4.This
came after lobbying from Brazil after the Brazilian Space Agency
discovered what was eventually called lunaterium
– a cheap and safe version of its toxic Terran cousin – on the
Earth's closest neighbor. The low-cost lunaterium helped expand the
pedelec market but this also meant a lot of cheap bikes were built.

Her
solution and her company's bid was to provide pedelecs (with support
infrastructure) buses and taxis (the latter which could also be
shared). There would be three price levels (bike or bus/shared
taxi/private taxi) all of which would be tied into a smart card/NFC
device for residents of the area. As far as she knew, only her
company was proposing bicycles as part of a solution.

Would
her company's bid be successful? She found it hard to wait for the
answer.

Torera
– Modern young woman in the city optimized for cycling

Torera
clicked on “send” in the communication application on her iPad
9... off went her dissertation “2012-2015: Spain's Slow Emergence
from Economic Disaster” to her advisor at the University. With a
touch on her screen and then a few strokes on the keyboard built into
the table at the café – it lived in a compartment which
automatically cleaned it after each use – she reserved a “Touch”
and was told it would be just outside and around the corner. She put
the iPad back in it's case and walked towards the street door of the
smart café after paying her EUR 11- bill for a coffee. Torera
visited this place often and the prices were no object, as her family
owned the company which, with EU social cohesion funding, introduced
the robotic bull and crowd-controlled android torero to Spain
starting in 2015. 5

As
she exited, she was nearly hit by a someone on a bicycle.

“Hey,
stop!” she yelled, not really loudly as the cyclist was not going
so fast – he turned around, looking a little embarrassed. “Do you
know you're not supposed to ride on the pavement here?” she asked
of him.

“I'm
sorry,” said the man, who was looked to be from East Asia, “In
school in China,” he said in perfect Spanish, “We learned that
you people tolerate cycling on the pavement.”

“We
used to,” answered Torera6,
“but we finally understood that it was not scalable.” She then
pointed to the bike lanes on either side of the busy street – busy
with streetcars and a few shared automobiles – it was related to
the Spanish law of 2016 which made it illegal to take pedestrian
space for cycling and to require bike lanes wide enough for cargo
bikes to pass one another. “Bikes need some space to move safely,
especially when there is a lot of them.”

Torera
beckoned the man to come closer and stand next to her as she
activated the This is How it Was7application on her iPhone. On the
screen they saw the street scene from 2011 superimposed onto the
current one8.
Both smiled at the solutions which were successful at the time but
not good enough anymore...

Torera
walked around the corner and saw three bikes parked on the pavement,
three “Touch-Bicis” – which most people just called “Touch”
for short. Which bike was hers? It did not matter: The system only
told her that at least one bike was available at a particular
location. If she touched her NFC mobile phone9 to any bike with a
green blinking light it would become hers10.

Juan
– Mobility-impaired lawyer and tourist

He
arrived early in the morning. There it was, just as he expected, a
three-wheeled pedelec11
. Juan, a lawyer specializing in electronic privacy, moved from the
platform area of the Brussels South train station – he had just
arrived from Catalonia via Paris. Using his NFC-equipped phone he
released the lock on his bike and then placed his bag in the cargo
basket and also his crutches.. He recalls visiting the “Capital of
Europe” a few years before and having to rent a normal bike instead
of being able to use either of the city's bike share systems. This
was complicated but he could talk to the staff and get some advice on
riding around the city. The staff was also curious but respectful
about how he cycled around considering that he had muscular
dystrophy.

He
took the familiar route to his hotel and locked his bike in front. He
put his bag on his back, grabbed his crutches and went into the
hotel. He bypassed the reception and went straight to his room,
opening it with his phone12.
He put down his bag and laid down on the bed for rest.

“Hmmm,
all the way to my hotel room and haven't spoked to a soul,” he
thought, before dozing off.

***

He
had no idea how to get to the European Parliament and while he could
use Google SuperEarth on his phone, he decided to do it by feel13.
He had used this system before in other cities, but as he found out
later in Brussels it did not seem as finely-tuned, e.g. in regards to
hills: It did not indicate a turn far enough in advance – this
would save both physical and mental effort if one knew they had to
turn before a big hill, or when they had to turn whilst going down
one.

At
the EP he met the assistant to MEP Ivana Bicicenko, with whom had an
important discussion scheduled. In
recent years more and more seamless mobility systems around Europe
had removed the possibility for anonymous use (e.g. using paper
tickets, paying the driver etc.). While this generally made things
easier and cheaper for both customers and operators, the supposedly
secure data was in a few cases “accidentally” leaked by operators
but in quite a few more was hacked, and often maliciously. MEP
Bicicenko was speaking to Juan in regards to the backlash against
“NFC-ism” as it threatened the goals for use of every type of
mobility except for walking, riding one's own bike, and private
driving of automobiles.

Afterword:

Angelica
celebrated that night as her company won the contract, but awoke the
next morning to a surprise general strike of public transport workers
in several countries in Europe, organized via social media. While she
helped her colleagues deal with an angry public in Madrid (and
beyond), both Torera and Juan found themselves without bicycles and
tricycles, since the staff who managed the individual solutions in
Seville and Brussels were union-members, the same as their colleagues
responsible for collective ones.
14

“When
one size doesn't fit all – What you need to know about e-bike
charging interfaces.” - Cycling
Mobility
issue 1/2011, June 2011.

Toxicity
of Cadmium –
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmio#Toxicidad_del_cadmio.
Before
lunaterium, cadmium became the subject of use restrictions that
eventually made its use in private urban automobiles very, very
expensive, one of the main reasons that private car use in EU cities
had dropped an average of 2% per year since 2012. As liquid fuel
prices also had risen significantly, private urban car use never
went back to 2011 levels.

“In
the year 2020, robots have replaced humans in boxing. Charlie Kenton
loses a chance to become a boxing champion when robots take over,
and he becomes a small-time promoter. When he has difficulty making
a living, he reluctantly teams up with his son Max to build a robot
that can contend for the championship.”
- synopis of the film “Real Steel”, set for release in Spain on
2 December 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Steel#Synopsis

“NFC”
stands for Near Field Communication, communication technology to
wirelessly at short range and at a high frequency that enables data
exchange between devices less than 10cm apart. (Source: Wikipedia).

In
the mid-2010's after the introducion of new, perfected “floating
public bicycle” systems (without fixed stands), the on-street,
location-fixed, single-company facilities of “3rd generation bike
share” were determined by EU lawmakers to be a monopolization of
public space (unlike e.g. bus stops or railway platforms, all of
which could serve different mobility providers). Bike share
operators rejected sharing the fixed stands; the result was that
fixed facilities – with the exception of locations such as railway
hubs - were made illegal in EU/EEA countries. From then on what came
to be called “individual, self-powered, optionally-motorized
public transport” or ISOPT, had to be based on “floating”
architecture.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Part Two of Two-Part Series on Velo-city Global in Vancouver. For Part One click here.

As ECF's annual conference event enters its last day, it seems a good time to ask how "Global" the conference is every other year (the first Velo-city Global was in Copenhagen in 2010 and the next will be Adelaide in 2014), and very much related to that, how inclusive it is.

Global Diversity - Men of European origin in front row in a secret bunker in Canada the day before Velo-city: Bernard Ensink (director of ECF, at far left); Alain Ayotte (CEO of PBSC, lead sponsor of Velo-city Global in Vancouver, second from left); Manfred Neun (President of the Board of ECF, fifth from left); Gregory Robertson (Mayor of Vancouver, sixth from left).Photoby Victoria Furuya and David Phu; Copyright European Cyclists Federation (c) 2012

I very much appreciate the work of the European Cyclists' Federation, and think it's great that they have grown by leaps and bounds in programmes and staff size in the last two to three years. I have participated in two Velo-city conferences, in 2007 (Munich) and in Copenhagen - the first as a presenter - had a paper accepted for 2011 in Seville related to this but was not able to attend, and have also co-organized a European project (albeit unfunded, just barely) that included the ECF. I have recently engaged the ECF in an article originally for the now defunct or suspended Cycling Mobility magazine -- this included some tough criticism which they responded to with action!

My biggest or most chronic criticism has been about Velo-city itself. I like the programming and side events and so on. I love to see my old mostly virtual friends there. So the main issue is the high cost of registration, which seems to be based in part on an understanding that it is urban elected officials and staff that can do the most to improve bike policy.

(Full disclosure: I have attended both events above for free as media (with press credentials), though I was otherwise self-funded and stayed in the local homes of friends).

Is the grassroots in attendance?

The main problem with a focus on city leaders is that they tend to leave office (either voted out, or with related staff changes). In the months after Velo-city 2011 in Seville, there was an election in which the people at the top who pushed the changes - the changes that resulted in part in Velo-city being held there - were voted out. Since then, I have confirmed reports that both pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and space is getting turned back into car parking, and also unconfirmed information that the bicycle share programme is not being maintained properly.

The biggest and baddest case comes from Bogota, where Enrique Penalosa famously created or built on a lot of improvements not just in cycling in the late 1990s, but - when comparing the situation to Sevilla, above, a friend - and expert - from the Colombian capital says:

"Sounds a lot like the 'post-2000 Bogotá syndrome'... We definitely need a stronger civil society to
counteract these problems!"

The problem is the lack of focus on the grassroots. The support of normal citizens transcends elections, and election battles, and even multiple terms in office of even the best and most effective politicians. I would also define civil society in the urban cycling world as not just NGOs, but also independent activists, activist bikeshops and bloggers. The grassroots in their members or supporters.

It is grassroots support that coalesced in the "Stop the Child Murder!" campaign in the 1970s that has created the highest-in-the-world bike modal share and great cycling conditions in the Netherlands, even as its national government has moved to the Right in recent years. Politicians there, from all parts of the political spectrum, implement continued improvements because they have to, because the citizenry supports these improvements.

Certainly, representatives of cycling organizations were able to attend and present. But pre-conference publicity spoke of over 1,000 expected delegates -- the reality is about 200 less, or a bit over 800.

So can these people afford going to Velo-city?

Let's consider costs for someone from St. Louis, Missouri to attend Velo-city Global in Vancouver. With an early discount good til 30 April - registration is CAD $995, or very nearly the same in USD. Perhaps a free home stay could be arranged, but airfare was at least USD 500. Some meals and extras are not included, so let's say this thrifty person can get away with only 200 extra. In total this is 1700 USD (paying for accommodation could bring it easily to 2000)...

But this is Velo-city Global. "Global" - to me - means people mostly from e.g. Latin America (e.g. Santiago for 1600), but also Africa (Nairobi for 2600) and Asia (New Delhi for 1600). (Cheapest round-trip flights, in USD, found on Kayak.com).

Who are these 800+ delegates?

A press release I received after the first day said they came from over 40 countries on six continents. In 2010 a similar line was put forth about delegates at the first Velo-city Global, but a fairly accurate count I did myself based on the list handed out to delegates showed that about only 15% of the delegates came from countries outside the EU and richer countries of the Global North.

Starting Monday of this week I repeatedly asked both the Velo-city publicist Mark Mauchline, the ECF communications manager Julian Ferguson and a member of the Board for an electronic version of the hand out, at least showing how many people came from each of those 40 countries. Well, now it is early Friday morning, and my emails, Tweets and text messages have not been returned. I expect to the get the truth eventually - e.g. when a friend who attended has a chance to scan or fax their delegate list to me - but for now I suspect that the organizers are hiding something... namely that most of the delegates are from rich countries.

What are the organizers doing to ensure diversity?

On the ECF Forum, in early December 2011, I asked a few questions about these issues in a message entitled "Registration Costs and Related". Richard Campbell, who took over as head of the conference in the interim, promised to respond but never did.

Related to that, I heard of no programmes which would help locals attend -- just people connected or not with local cycling groups who are not able to afford the high registration cost.

Within the main conference programme itself there were two more issues, both related to technology:

First of all, free WiFi is only available inside the venue to guests of the Sheraton, which is on the same site as the conference. The Sheraton is one of the most expensive hotels recommended for Velo-city delegates.

The other issue extends beyond the hotel, or, rather, does not. There is no livestream of any sort. A live webcast allows participation of some sort by people not only who cannot afford to attend, but simply do not have the time to do so. While a good livestream set-up is expensive, I am afraid to say that I think the organizers of the Velo-city series.think that it will affect the number of delegates who pay .

After conference activities...

"Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen! This is Julie, your cruise director. First of all, an extra special welcome to our guests who have been at Velo-city Global in Vancouver this week!..."

YES, there is a post-conference cruise! This is a week long and costs at least 1000 extra
plus possibly an extra night of accommodation. When you get to this
elite level in the cycling world how relevant are discussions? Traditionally, on the weekend after the conference there are one-day trips and longer bike tours, perhaps assisted by regional trains.

If
you are interested in the "green" benefits of cycling, consider that a cruise adds a significant environmental burden to the overall trip:

“Conference participants from Canada or the
US would more than double (if not quadruple) their total
carbon footprint for this conference trip when joining the
Alaska cruise post-conference programme, regardless of
whether they would be flying or using other modes.
However, even for participants from Europe, the cruise
share of their total carbon footprint would be
considerable (around 40%) and, in view of this being
(only) a post-programme event, quite doubtful from an
environment point-of-view. Particularly where stakeholders
in cycling often (and justifiably) boast about the good
environmental and emission record of their industry.” - Eke Eijgelaar, Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport, NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences.

The "Global" in Velo-city Global is somewhat of an exaggeration. At least for now. This is important to consider as ECF director Bernard Ensink has alluded to making the ECF a global organization.

This means that Brussels is not necessarily the most logical spot for an HQ (could be Geneva, NYC - main office of UNEP and UNDP, respectively - or even Beijing for that matter. Or what about South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa?).

ECF's board is from the EU10 countries (aside from two members) -- and this reminds me that the various committees for Vancouver had no representation from the Global South.

Add to that the lack of intent for electronic distribution and an unwillingness of staff to respond to difficult issues, and I think we have an organization that is simply not mature enough to expand beyond the EU. If there are big changes in how the Velo-city Global is organized in Adelaide it will make a big difference (I am thinking of very concrete representation and participation from East Asia).

It is also not clear if a global organization for (mostly) urban cycling is really needed. Participation in such an entity requires financial resources that are simply beyond the reach of normal people who ride bikes... and their leaders. ECF seems to want to play with the big boys and girls, but that runs contrary to the philosophy of many people who are interested in a more modest lifestyle than leaders in other industries (for example the automobile industry). There is really no reason to hold the conference in a five-star venue, or to cater with excess.

This does not mean that expenses should be reduced, only that money is spent more logically. I would bet that many would be happy in a less fancy location if it could mean that there would be high-quality livestream, or just lower prices in general. Many, smaller regional events are in order -- this was suggested by the expert from Colombia.

Separate from the ECF Forum discussion, I wrote to both ECF and Velo-city Vancouver management and suggested some kind of sliding scale based on GDP of origin country, organizational budget and travel expense. Let's hope that idea sinks in, and see what comes out of it.

Hope to see you in Vienna for Velo-city in 2012.

***

Some more highlights of Velo-city Global in Vancouver:

In a simulation for "Operation Dutch Columbia", cycle-mounted soldiers from the Netherlands attack Vancouver from three directions.

Velo-city delegates who received a bicycle for use during the week had to sign a form which read:

'I hereby agree that cycling is inherently a highly dangerous activity, (...) potentially leading to heavy injury or even death'

This can be easily dismissed as a symptom of Canada/USA excessive lawyering, but the lawyers themselves feed into and thrive on the cult of cycling fear in these countries. This keeps modal share low, and helmets popular.

It is easy for me to say it now (not in Vancouver, and after the fact) but would have not accepted the bike if I had to sign a statement like that. Hopefully in the future - e.g. if the helmet law is not overturned in Adelaide by the time of Velo-city Global, though this in part a separate issue - delegates make the same choice if confronted with this situation.